Transport and storage of water, or other hydrating fluids, is an important facet in today's athletic sports as dehydration has been recognized as a serious health problem which needs to be contended with. This is especially true with regard to individual sports which take the participant off of the “beaten” trail and away from sources of hydrating liquids, such as for climbers, bikers, and runners.
Initially water or other hydrating fluids were carried in canteens, generally slung over the shoulder or clipped onto a waist belt. These, however, often proved to be bulky and cumbersome and thus often difficult to carry. Over time, fluid storage made the leap to being carried in one's backpack, also called athletic or hydration packs. This had the advantage of more evenly distributing the weight over the back and allowed for keeping the hands free.
Hydration packs generally are constructed to have a water/fluids bladder which carries the water. A tube is then connected to the bladder through which the wearer of the pack can drink. But the current athletic hydration packs have problems with access to the liquid storage bladders in that storage and control of the bladders in either the full or empty state in the pack themselves is difficult to manage. In addition, the bladders are difficult to fill due to the positioning and retention of the bladders in the pack. Such positioning of the bladders make the pack cumbersome for the users to get in and out of the packs. Also additionally a full bladder over time will tend to reposition itself in the current iterations of athletic packs thus increasing the burdens on the user in both refilling and re-positioning of the bladder in the pack and in comfortable wear and positioning on the user's back. Lastly, the current construction of the athletic packs today require threading of the water hose tubing into and out of the shoulder straps and their retainers on the shoulder straps in order to keep the tubing in place. Such routing is often undone by the disposition and movement of the bladders in today's pack.
For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,975,387, to Gleason et al., shows a separate bladder pack which resides between the carrying and storage back pack and the user's back. The separate bladder pack having a bladder residing in a compartment which rests against the back of a user. However, while the bladder compartment has an opening in which the bladder may be secured, the opening is shown to be on a side of the bladder compartment. While separate and distinct from the back pack, it is a separate pack from the backpack, wherein the pack bag is attached to the back side of the bladder compartment pack.
Another example is shown by U.S. Pat. No. 6,764,064 to Sturm et al., which shows a bladder compartment pack which has a zipper for accessing the compartment on the front side away from the user. The patent discloses a opening on the back side of the bladder compartment pack that does not allow for easy visibility of the bladder or easy filling of the bladder should the storage pocket on the front side of the bladder compartment pack be full of user items.
Lastly, another example is shown by U.S. Pat. No. 6,908,015 to Choi et al., which shows a bladder stored in a pack with an import in which the bladder is filled on the back side of the pack. However, this places the bladder cap in direct contact with the user's back. This potentially may cause the user irritation and discomfort due to friction between the bladder cap and the user's back.
A disadvantage of the bladders accessible by a front-flap is multi-fold. Firstly access to the bladder is often obstructed by the current contents in the pack in the front compartment. Secondly, a problem presents itself upon filling of the bladder in that the user cannot often tell exactly how full the bladder is due to such obstructions.
Thus such construction of the pack for storage does not allow for access to the bladder without entry into the main storage area/compartment. This can be problematic both in retrieval of items from the compartment and when the need arises to refill the liquid bladder. Thus, as can be see, none of these examples and from a review of packs currently in use, allow for easy access of the liquid storage bladder from the rear.